Nitebob
The never ending quest for tone! First time I played electric in a P & W band was with a Crafter hybrid with a soapbar pickup (and a piezzo under the saddle) through a Marhall 30DFX amp. Loved the tone, but wanted more flexibility, enter the stratocaster with three pickup settings....
Moved to CT and joined another band..."sorry, no amps" So I bought a Boss BD2. Great pedal with a sweet tone, but without reverb and chorus....
Point is, you want to get creative and have your own sound, or fill your sound better.
These days I play more acoustic, and even thats going through the TC Helicon Play Acoustic, has the Body Res, HOF Reverb and Corona Chorus built in...the hunt for a pitch shifter and (maybe) Delay pedal is now on...
It never stops! ???
singemonkey
Naturally I'm with EZ. Your basic guitar tone should not come from a pedal. It should come from the amplifier. That's the soundbox of an electric guitar. Electric guitars sound their best when their tone comes from an amplifier - not from a preamp (either on-board or off-board; a drive pedal is just an external preamp). But this doesn't make me anti-pedals.
It just makes me anti-drive pedals. I don't use *effects* pedals to create my guitar tone. I use them for special effects. What a concept, eh?
So while I don't like or use drive pedals, I looooove fuzz pedals. A fuzz pedal totally changes the character of your sound. And almost every one does it noticeably differently. The idea is not to create a good guitar tone. It's to make the guitar sound weird for effect. Sometimes it sounds good, but that's not even necessary. It must just stand out and work in context.
The same is true of every other effect with the exception perhaps of reverb. That's the only effect I'll ever just leave on for a whole gig.
It's about hooks, people. You put in melodic hooks in your song. Rhythmic ones. Lyrical ones. And special guitar effects you put in for the same reason. In the middle of that song, the guitar solo is graunchy wah, and then it's gone. Something surprising, and fun, and most of all, memorable. You start a song with the arpeggiated chords with a fat tremolo wobble. Or that lick is mad, bubbling, octave-fuzz.
This was why effects were invented - in order to make people's songs stand out in the crazy competitive song-writing market in the 1960s. For me that's still their main purpose - not to make you sound like X. Use everything sparingly and it'll make your stuff more memorable and more fun to listen to. Use multiple effects on every guitar line, and that disappears.
If the notion of special effects sounds too whacky for you, then maybe you should can the whole thing - as many great guitar players have done - and focus on getting a truly responsive amplifier that enhances the sound of your playing. Well, you should do that anyway.
singemonkey
MIKA the better one wrote:
Without sounding like a dick, you hve been playing a year and a half you said, or call it two years. Most likely at this point you are still flushing out the basics of guitar and honestly pedals are not for you. Some people never.
This is why I advised people in my "first gear" thread to avoid spending money on effects when they're starting out. You need to figure out the guitar, and effects are a big distraction. You start trying to 'play' the effects instead of the guitar.
Hasie
This is all some great information. Enjoying it. ?
Sakkie
I have a small BOSS bass combo pedal.
I use the built-in tuner and the compression effect which is always engaged, because I have &^@!#$ technique.
Also, pedals look cool.
ezietsman
Pedals only look cool to the one standing in front of the board. Nobody else can see them usually. They're kinda opposite to guitars, where the audience can see your guitar and will see it looks cool or not, but you yourself don't really see or notice the looks of your own guitar. Same with your amp. Pedals however, you see them but nobody else. So the way they look is not important.
Eujean
singemonkey wrote:
Lyrical ones.
Let's be honest, lyrics are those things in between solos... ?
V8
ez wrote:
Pedals only look cool to the one standing in front of the board. Nobody else can see them usually.
Unless you are a player yourself, then you notice everything. Not that aesthetics are important to me, either guitar, amp or pedals... but I once heard a funk wah bass tone so sweet - during the break I went over and inspected his floor board. Actually I drooled over it. :-[
Super cool guy, over a beer, we chatted about how he put it together and used it. Was a good nite out.
MIKA-the-better-one
The guitarist here uses a clean or semi clean level and builds his pedals off that.... Loops , Octaves, Overdrive Reverbs... SWEETNESS all inspired by pedals.
AND
ChrisDanger
Maybe watch some rig rundowns of guitarists you like to see how they get their live sounds.
https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=rig+rundown
You might have to dig a bit. Sometimes they interview the techs, but the artists will play and go through how they set the pedals and the sounds they make. Just scan the preview to skip to the sections on pedals.
psyx
You guys are all overlooking the sweet chorus effect ?
I don't play live, but for me pedals are a little unnecessary. Guitar, cable, amp. HOWEVER, some effects like delay, chorus and most fuzzes can't really be done by any proper amp. So for particular applications you need pedals in your arsenal.
Then there is the power of the tube screamer... Mid humped OD can do wonders for your tone, especially high gain. It tightens up your tone and helps you cut through the mix quite well.
Hasie
Thanks all for your viewpoints, opinions, advice and the loads of information.
Where I am at currently with my guitar playing abilities and the styles/genres covered during my lessons. The pedal I believe will actually make most of the pieces sound better, is an octave pedal. Not to say that J am going to buy one, but the missus is asking for birthday gift ideas. ?
singemonkey
Hasie wrote:
The pedal I believe will actually make most of the pieces sound better, is an octave pedal. Not to say that J am going to buy one, but the missus is asking for birthday gift ideas. ?
Please no. This is what I'm talking about. What you're doing is going, "Wow, this sounds amazing!" Sure. But it'd sound ludicrous if you have an octaver on every single guitar line. You'll see some seriously raised eyebrows. It's a great effect, but put it on everything and it'll sound terrible, and inhibit your learning. An octaver is most definitely a special effect.
If you're desperate to explore pedals, get a cheap 2nd hand multi-fx (those digital things are worth pocket-change after a few years) and experiment. Like a Zoom or an old Boss. Learn what you like. Don't fork out even more money on a specific pedal that will almost invariable end up gathering dust when you understand that it has no real application to the music you want to make.
daveo1977
Here's a great video by the guys at That Pedal Show:
They take four classic guitars (Fender Strat, Fender Tele, Collings 290 DC S and Gibson Les Paul) and play them through three pedals considered modern classics (Ibanez Tubescreamer, Klon Centaur and ProCo Rat). The aim of this is to talk about guitar pickups; differences in tone facilitated by the different pedals used.
Hasie
singemonkey wrote:
Hasie wrote:
The pedal I believe will actually make most of the pieces sound better, is an octave pedal. Not to say that J am going to buy one, but the missus is asking for birthday gift ideas. ?
Please no. This is what I'm talking about. What you're doing is going, "Wow, this sounds amazing!" Sure. But it'd sound ludicrous if you have an octaver on every single guitar line. You'll see some seriously raised eyebrows. It's a great effect, but put it on everything and it'll sound terrible, and inhibit your learning. An octaver is most definitely a special effect.
If you're desperate to explore pedals, get a cheap 2nd hand multi-fx (those digital things are worth pocket-change after a few years) and experiment. Like a Zoom or an old Boss. Learn what you like. Don't fork out even more money on a specific pedal that will almost invariable end up gathering dust when you understand that it has no real application to the music you want to make.
Thanks. I will reconsider. The multi-fx to experiment with is a great idea.
TokyoP0P
Good thread. It somehow got me both curious and hesitant about pedals.
Stoffeltoo
Don't like 'em any more. Cost lots, not worth it. I prefer clean or amp with footswitch. Just my taste
V8
Hasie wrote:
singemonkey wrote:
If you're desperate to explore pedals, get a cheap 2nd hand multi-fx (those digital things are worth pocket-change after a few years) and experiment. Like a Zoom or an old Boss. Learn what you like. Don't fork out even more money on a specific pedal that will almost invariable end up gathering dust when you understand that it has no real application to the music you want to make.
Thanks. I will reconsider. The multi-fx to experiment with is a great idea.
+1. Trust the Singemonkey!
Sooo many Zoom models to choose from, not sure what I'd get - probably just choose based on what I could find at the right price. Ideally, the G1/G2 stuff over the 505/707 range. Though I found a 505 (as new) for R200...can't go wrong at that money. Fun little things, punch above their weight if you are not fussed about reliability (stomp switches can give up - repairable though).
The Line6 stuff is also cool, a bit more tweakable than the Zoom - I really enjoyed my X3 Live, until I read the manual & it broke... :?
Boss stuff is usually very reliable - ME25/ME50 are useful, just fx w/o modelling crap. I found the GT-8 a bit frustrating to use, but lotsa pedal for the $.
One thing about multi-fx...read up on how placing fx in a different a order affects the sound. No rights or wrongs, just guidelines...
http://www.humbuckermusic.com/peorar.html
It's easier to visualize with actual pedals than the modelling stuff.
Ain't G.A.S great? I really should be playing guitar instead of key-taring though :-[
Hasie
Yep, G.A.S. is an issue. Sometimes I'll browse the web drooling over guitars, while I should be playing my own. It's like watching pron, while the missus is right there... ?
Being almost blind has its disadvantages. Like setting up multi-fx pedals with their tiny displays and small buttons and fine print manuals. So if I do decide to get pedals in the future, I'd choose something with two to four knobs which controls one effect, maybe two, it will just be easier for me.
EDIT: That being said, I should maybe just go try a few and see if I can read the labels of the buttons and see properly on the screen and set it up and try and keep an open mind about it.
Unfortunately for me, the birthday budget can't buy a Tokai LS. ☹
ezietsman
GAS is both wonderful and terrible. This year was especially bad. Two exciting things on the way but I've had to wait. A LONG, slow, agonising wait, and I have to wait some more because neither of the two things are within grasping distance yet and yet, my credit card is on fire. I go through these highs and lows "Awww Yisssss its gonna be awesome!!!" and "I've made a terrible mistake".
Problem with my view on pedals is that I now of course want another amplifier. Maybe this one will be the last... (whotf am I kidding...)
